I'm jet-lagged in San Francisco and that gives me the opportunity to give you another update . I'm here for the Game Developers Conference, though truth be said, I haven't seen anything from the show yet nor have I participated in a single seminar. Instead, I spent most of my time in hotel rooms showing off project D & E. I've got D running on an X360 dev-kit I brought (which due to the transformer I've had to bring is horribly heavy) and for E I've got a video on my brand new Ipad (which I curse about now having seen the IPad 2, I should've waited err.. anybody want to buy a brand new Ipad ?).

Over the last couple of days I've been showing both games to a variety of distributors/publishers, trying to make sure that when either one releases, it'll be available worldwide on day 1, and while they all understand the success of Divinity II, it's still stunning to see how few publishers understand RPG's and the RPG market in general. Don't read that as there's no interest in E & D, on the contrary, I can actually confirm that both games have secured funding so they'll be happening, but it just struck me as strange how many of the larger publishers approach the RPG genre as something alien.

Lar then writes that, having been successful with those two, he though he'd pitch his dream Very Big RPG That Will Dwarf All Other RPGs, which shows something of the current market (although it's hard to complain with two projects signed, I would imagine):

I'm afraid that I have to report that it's not working out that well, and that our next two games won't be the Very Big RPG That Will Dwarf All Other RPGs, but I did want to mention that I tried The feedback I got was "we don't do RPGs", "we did an RPG once and all involved got fired", "it's a very hardcore thing, an RPG. We're not into hardcore that much anymore","we're just not active in that space" etc… Now in some cases you need to read that feedback as "well, we just don't have cash and we're looking for developers we don't have to pay" or "we've got cash and we'd like to keep it so the last thing we'll do is spend it on a RPG" to "it hasn't got the words social, free to play and micro-transactions in it, so it's bound to be a failure, what the hell is he thinking", but in other cases it's really a case of not getting it, which is a pity.

There's a strong tendency not to make RPGs among the publishers that haven't made X-loads of money with a RPG in the past, and a strong tendency to stick to the IP's they have among the publishers that did make money with RPGs, meaning that there's very little chance some independent developer will get the opportunity to make something big and new in the RPG space. Given that observation i.e. it's not going to come from publisher interest, I guess somehow we'll have to find a way to make the Very Big RPG That Will Dwarf All Other RPGs ourselves (after which I'm sure there'll be plenty of publisher interest )

I call this good news. We will get two rpgs from Larian Studios. Hopefully we can finally kill Damien. Something the divine should of did when he was a child.

I also have to agree with Lars on what the industry thinks of hardcore rpgs. If it doesn't have dlc plans or micro-transaction most are not interested. For this reason that's why there is only three big rpg developers out and its shrinking. That is a sad thought.

I'm also getting tired of hearing its to hardcore and company's using the term as if it is detestable. Another causality of streamlining for sales. So just let me wish Larian Studios good luck and hopefully one day you get a chance to make your dream rpg.

Lets not fool ourselves here, larion studios is not making the end all be all turn based RPG. These guys make great games, but hardly hardcore rpg's. I love their stuff though, but it seems really funny to think of them as the hard core guys.

I would love to finance "Very Big RPG That Will Dwarf All Other RPGs" if A) I had anything like that kind of money and B) if they promissed that they would really name it that AND arrange for that name to make sense within the game world context.

Originally Posted by rune_74
They make action RPG's maybe that should clarify it for you.

Action-RPGs can definitely be "hardcore" RPGs in my opinion. The whole turn-based vs. real-time thing is just silly; it's not the combat system (at least by itself) that determines if a game is "hardcore" or not. Divinity 2, despite its shallow combat, is still a hardcore RPG because of the stellar implementation of real role-playing elements, such as multiple quest outcomes, intelligent level design, tons of intricate detail in every dungeon in terms of secrets, etc.

A really good comparison would be Divine Divinity vs. Diablo. Both of these games have shallow, tedious combat. However, which one is "hardcore" and which one isn't? I think that - because of the features I listed for Div2 that were also present in Divine Divinity (and not in Diablo) - the answer is pretty obvious.

Originally Posted by Nerevarine
Action-RPGs can definitely be "hardcore" RPGs in my opinion. The whole turn-based vs. real-time thing is just silly; it's not the combat system (at least by itself) that determines if a game is "hardcore" or not. Divinity 2, despite its shallow combat, is still a hardcore RPG because of the stellar implementation of real role-playing elements, such as multiple quest outcomes, intelligent level design, tons of intricate detail in every dungeon in terms of secrets, etc.

A really good comparison would be Divine Divinity vs. Diablo. Both of these games have shallow, tedious combat. However, which one is "hardcore" and which one isn't? I think that - because of the features I listed for Div2 that were also present in Divine Divinity (and not in Diablo) - the answer is pretty obvious.

Great news.
Dragon Knight Saga is unfuckwithable and yes, considering the current environment, it´s a pretty "hardcore" game - combat is quite difficult endeavour on nightmare, badly thought out character development and resource management can bite player in the ass and the game is relatively light on hand holding in general.